By accessing this website, you acknowledge that Edmunds and its third party business partners may use cookies, pixels, and similar technologies to collect information about you and your interactions with the website as described in our
Privacy Statement, and you agree that your use of the website is subject to our
Visitor Agreement.
Comments
2013 LX 570 2016 LS 460
As a little kid, I remember going to a lake pier to swim. This particular pier was for nearby property owners only and was well maintained and deck was painted white and very light gray. I recall that white was relatively cool to step on compared to light gray. Black would no doubt fry bare feet in summer sun.
Many houses' exterior walls need a dark roof for proper match. White roof would look goofy, maybe some kind of beige would work, though not as effective as ceiling white color.
Also I am sure the "technology" in the paint for siding and roofing has improved ( specifically) for sun reflection, etc. I know for example there is a roof underlayment reflective product (not insulative product) that reflects AND insulates. It is just I haven't spec'ed a house for a long time, so I have not kept up with the latest and greatest.
2021 Kia Soul LX 6-speed stick
I just heard in passing* the average "age" of the passenger vehicle fleet is 9.3 years. (before the current economic D) So given the average of 12,000 to 15,000 miles per year, we are talking 111,600 to 139,500 miles.
*(heard this in passing on the cable tv, History Channel, Modern Marvels, Corrosion and DeComposition (2008))
.
A possible effect of global warming with us here in southern Arizona is the fact that our monsoons are coming in a limited way about two months early this year. Something is screwing up the weather, but is it man-made? Could be the hotspots on the sun altering a tad, who knows.
2021 Kia Soul LX 6-speed stick
The NWS has missed so much this year it makes me wonder how all these so called scientists think they can predict 10ths of a degree 100 years from now when they cannot give any real accuracy within 10 degrees 24 hours in advance.
The water expense at the new house is up by $900 a year compared to the old house, where it was free. That is 53% of the fuel savings from the move. A move that was only about 17 miles closer to work would have had it's gas savings completely wiped out by the same water utility increase. This is based on 22-23 mpg. There is still the 80 minutes a day I no longer sit in a car, and the huge gas savings from our family's other driving distances now being shorter since the move.
On a yearly basis, heating is about 8 times as expensive as air conditioning here at 40 degrees N.
Lawn water is about the same as air conditioning in total yearly cost. In S. Fl, a/c was much more, but still less than heat up here.
Given a US population of 304 M, there is literally precious little and few housing, percentage wise that can support a no vehicle lifestyle. The percentage of housing that does is almost predictably exponentially more expense and it affects almost EVERY aspect!! Indeed my experiences lead me to believe that "no vehicle" lifestyle is actually MORE consumptive.
So for example, unless your property maintenance and taxation went down, it is actually costing you MORE to live (closer to your job being the operative issue), even with the $1,700 fuel savings.
The silver lining is gas savings by my wife and sons adds a lot in my case. We went from a 51,000 miles driven per year family to about 20,000 miles a year. I had gas payments higher than a Vette lease back then. My highest mpg is high 22's in any of my 4+ vehicles. The '98 Astro only gets 14 city in the winter and 22.7 on a trip in the spring.
If I stayed out in the country, I'd probably have an '09 Malibu 4 cyl by now. That would still leave me high gas bills and add car payments, but I'd have a new ride that was racking up 25,000 miles a year.
In case you missed Arnie's grandstanding (anything to avoid talking about the last vote there):
"The governor reminded the automotive press that 20 percent of the new vehicles sold in the United States are sold in California, which is home to 25 million cars and trucks. (Those vehicles, not incidentally, consume 50 million gallons of gasoline and diesel a day and produce 40 percent of the state's greenhouse gases.)
As a result of California's vehicle market share, and that fact that Washington often follows the state's lead regarding tailpipe-emissions regulations, automakers can count on there being a large market for hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles and companies considering investments in an H2-refueling infrastructure can rest assured there will be vehicles requiring the fuel, he said."
Schwarzenegger: Calif. Committed to H2 Future Regardless of Washington Politics (Green Car Advisor)
Here is one. At one time I lived on a mass transit corridor with the stop literally 50 ft from a (my) seven car covered garage. My dog would literally signal me when she saw the light rail coming. I could literally just "get on board". The place where I worked literally had its own underground stop (as close to PRIVATE with out being PRIVATE) Coming back home was a "hike" It stopped 100 ft away, even as the "return" line passed within 30 ft of the above garage.
If I bought a 2010 Mitsubishi i-MiEV and wanted to travel, right now all I could reach would be Tucson from my house. I called the only Tucson Mitsubishi dealership there is up and asked if I was one of the first i-MiEV purchasers from them, could I re-charge at their dealership? This guy just told me "I don't know. It's too early yet."
Umm...if I was selling Mitsubishi's there I would've told me sure! The more I look at it it might be better to just wait and see what lawmakers come up with to support green cars. Maybe BO can pop some of that revitalization money in to charging and hydrogen refueling stations.
Right now conversations just die as soon as they get started on "green" issues, though you can find a lot out on the net if you really want to.
2021 Kia Soul LX 6-speed stick
I think that the more things change the more they stay the same. My Dad and I had a conversation like this regarding ICE engines. I remember him saying something to that effect, too. I mean, we aren't making much progress in miles per gallon, are we? :shades:
Might lobbying and big oil companies have something to do with it?
I do think cars are hurting the environment, too, and making global warming worse. But there's so much else going on that is going to have to change, too, like building coal-fired electrical plants once per week, come hell or high water.
2021 Kia Soul LX 6-speed stick
Last I read the Civic FCX still costs Honda over $100,000 to build. It has to do with Platinum I believe. As the dollar deteriorates the precious metals get more expensive. There are two different systems. You can run an ICE on hydrogen or have fuel cells that produce electricity for an electric drive. Don't hold your breath on either technology being in our price range for the next 10 years at least. They will make the Volt seem CHEAP.
So also for the consumer with a PHILL would give the taxing authorities FITS. For while nat gas consumers do pay taxation on home delivery nat gas for transportation purposes would be a nightmare from the ability to tax for transportation, point of view. This is probably another unspoken reason why plug in electric has been delayed almost 2 decades.
This arrangement allows the engine to operate at a much higher compression ratio - a measure of the amount by which the fuel-air mixture is compressed before being ignited - than normal. As a result, an average car engine can be "downsized" to one that should have around 23 per cent better fuel efficiency, Ford says."
Alcohol makes autos more climate-friendly (newscientist.com)
Local weather patterns are not Global Climate.
There are different variables for predicting immediate weather versus Global climate patterns in coming decades.
That's why there are different fields of meteorologists and climatologists and they do different jobs and have different inputs to their data.
It is all part of the same scientific community. The Global science depends on the local weather reports to compile their data.
Of course that is totally different than the scientists that decide who's polluting what. And there still is debate on which comes first. Heat or CO2.
Water vapor is responsible for about 95% of the Earth's greenhouse effect. Carbon dioxide is less than 2% of the total effect, with methane taking up most of the balance, and other gasses responsible for the remainder. But all we EVER hear about is CO2.
So the question still stands. How can Automobiles be a major cause of GW, when even the most rabid GW proponents admit that ALL transportation is responsible for only 15% of GHG.
Of course the poor sheep are now asked not to burp. :sick:
We're doing our bit.............roast lamb is one of our favourite Sunday lunch dishes.
As for local weather not being representative of GW - it doesn't stop the UK media from harping on about Climate Change/GW when we have a couple of sunny days. The BBC have stated their position as being "the science is proven and we will not, in future, be reporting any anti-CC/GW comments - from whatever source". Nice to have such an open-minded national broadcaster.
"We did not find any results for bbc the science is proven and we will not, in future, be reporting any anti-CC/GW comments - from whatever source." Bing
It is truly amazing the government hasnt started evacuation of the ISLE given the "belief" in GW and imminent flooding !!
Almost two decades before President Barack Obama made “cap-and-trade” for carbon dioxide emissions a household term, an obscure company called Enron — a natural-gas pipeline company that had become a big-time trader in energy commodities — had figured out how to make millions in a cap-and-trade program for sulphur dioxide emissions, thanks to changes in the U.S. government’s Clean Air Act. To the delight of shareholders, Enron’s stock price rose rapidly as it became the major trader in the U.S. government’s $20-billion a year emissions commodity market.
Enron Chairman Kenneth Lay, keen to engineer an encore, saw his opportunity when Bill Clinton and Al Gore were inaugurated as president and vice-president in 1993. To capitalize on Al Gore’s interest in global warming, Enron immediately embarked on a massive lobbying effort to develop a trading system for carbon dioxide, working both the Clinton administration and Congress. Political contributions and Enron-funded analyses flowed freely, all geared to demonstrating a looming global catastrophe if carbon dioxide emissions weren’t curbed. An Enron-funded study that dismissed the notion that calamity could come of global warming, meanwhile, was quietly buried.
To magnify the leverage of their political lobbying, Enron also worked the environmental groups. Between 1994 and 1996, the Enron Foundation donated $1-million to the Nature Conservancy and its Climate Change Project, a leading force for global warming reform, while Lay and other individuals associated with Enron donated $1.5-million to environmental groups seeking international controls on carbon dioxide.
The intense lobbying paid off. Lay became a member of president Clinton’s Council on Sustainable Development, as well as his friend and advisor. In the summer of 1997, prior to global warming meetings in Kyoto, Japan, Clinton sought Lay’s advice in White House discussions. The fruits of Enron’s efforts came soon after, with the signing of the Kyoto Protocol.
An internal Enron memo, sent from Kyoto by John Palmisano, a former Environmental Protection Agency regulator who had become Enron’s lead lobbyist as senior director for Environmental Policy and Compliance, describes the historic corporate achievement that was Kyoto.
“If implemented this agreement will do more to promote Enron’s business than will almost any other regulatory initiative outside of restructuring of the energy and natural-gas industries in Europe and the United States,” Palmisano began. “The potential to add incremental gas sales, and additional demand for renewable technology is enormous.”
The memo, entitled “Implications of the Climate Change Agreement in Kyoto & What Transpired,” summarized the achievements that Enron had accomplished. “I do not think it is possible to overestimate the importance of this year in shaping every aspect of this agreement,” he wrote, citing three issues of specific importance to Enron which would become, as those following the climate-change debate in detail now know, the biggest money plays: the rules governing emissions trading, the rules governing transfers of emission reduction rights between countries, and the rules governing a gargantuan clean energy fund.
Palmisano’s memo expressed satisfaction bordering at amazement at Enron’s successes. The rules governing transfers of emission rights “is exactly what I have been lobbying for and it seems like we won. The clean development fund will be a mechanism for funding renewable projects. Again we won .... The endorsement of emissions trading was another victory for us.”
Palmisano’s hard work had paid off, thanks to the many allies Enron had enlisted. Deserving special emphasis was the environmental community, whose endorsement was crucial to Enron’s achievements at Kyoto.
“Enron now has excellent credentials with many ‘green’ interests including Greenpeace, WWF [World Wildlife Fund], NRDC [Natural Resources Defense Council], German Watch, the U.S. Climate Action Network, the European Climate Action Network, Ozone Action, WRI [World Resources Institute] and Worldwatch. This position should be increasingly cultivated and capitalized on (monetized),” Polisano explained.
The groundwork had been laid well, not least by entering into relationships with scientists who, Enron expected, would further its cause (James Hansen, the scientist who more than any other is responsible for bringing the possibility of climate-change catastrophe to the public, was among the scientists Enron commissioned). Just as shrewdly, Enron saw the importance in silencing the scientists who didn’t accept the alarmism that had driven the Kyoto Protocol. In a 1998 letter, Enron CEO Ken Lay, among others, asked president Clinton to appoint a bi-partisan “Blue-Ribbon Commission” designed to pronounce on the science and, in effect, marginalize the skeptics.
More
So we can add James Hansen, lackey for Enron's Ken Lay, to his resume'.
You, living in Cali, MIGHT.
I know I personally will not pay a penny for it.
It's no "scam" anyway and you KNOW it's not. You just like to say that to get people going.
If you use any utilities on the grid YOU WILL pay. No one not living in a cave or totally off the grid will escape the Cap N Trade taxes.
Cap and trade is the tax that dare not speak its name, and Democrats are hoping in particular that no one notices who would pay for their climate ambitions. With President Obama depending on vast new carbon revenues in his budget and Congress promising a bill by May, perhaps Americans would like to know the deeply unequal ways that climate costs would be distributed across regions and income groups.
Politicians love cap and trade because they can claim to be taxing "polluters," not workers. Hardly. Once the government creates a scarce new commodity -- in this case the right to emit carbon -- and then mandates that businesses buy it, the costs would inevitably be passed on to all consumers in the form of higher prices. Stating the obvious, Peter Orszag -- now Mr. Obama's budget director -- told Congress last year that "Those price increases are essential to the success of a cap-and-trade program."
Hit hardest would be the "95% of working families" Mr. Obama keeps mentioning, usually omitting that his no-new-taxes pledge comes with the caveat "unless you use energy." Putting a price on carbon is regressive by definition because poor and middle-income households spend more of their paychecks on things like gas to drive to work, groceries or home heating.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123655590609066021.html
As usual you believe our government is above board in everything they do. Larsb, you will Pay and pay. And the climate will continue to CHANGE as it has done for EVER.
And I will be someday soon getting a solar roof, sometime within the next 5 years I hope. And then my home will become nearly carbon-neutral.
Maybe this will spur more people to start living in caves. Which would be fine with me.
And I will be someday soon getting a solar roof, sometime within the next 5 years I hope. And then my home will become nearly carbon-neutral.
Maybe this will spur more people to start living in caves. Which would be fine with me. "..
No the concept/s is/are FIRMLY in place and it literally affects EVERYTHING !!
(I know that it is true that you have more than noticed.) So your statement is more than a tad incredulous!!??
Getting a solar "REFLECTIVE" roof (aka paint) is STILL but impossible !!??
Well if the latests Sacramento, CA "TENT" in lulapoluzza is any guide, a resounding NO !!!!
Democrats Advance Cap And Trade Tax
By JOE MURRAY, The Bulletin
Monday, April 27, 2009
Friday’s House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing held regarding global warming has sparked a new energy debate. The hearing left Republicans charging the Democratic plan would punish Americans and left Democrats admitting their cap-and-trade policy would be a “big” tax.
Under the cap and trade scheme advocated by Democrats, the federal government would set a limit on the amount of a pollutant that could be emitted. If a company plans to exceed the government cap, it would have to purchase credits from a company that has polluted less.
The debate comes as President Barack Obama nears his 100-day mark in office and Democrats in Congress argue a broad global-warming bill is needed to save the Earth from melting glaciers and dramatic climate changes.
Supporters say the plan punishes those who pollute, by making them buy credits, and rewards those who pollute less, by letting them sell their credits. Critics say the proposed system would be glorified tax on the poorest of Americans.
“This bill is an energy tax,” former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich told the committee in his testimony alongside former Vice President Al Gore.
“An energy tax punishes senior citizens, it punishes rural Americans, if you use electricity it punishes you. This bill will increase your cost of living and may kill your job,” Mr. Gingrich said.
A leading Democrat on the committee also admitted Friday the cap-and-trade system was a tax, telling Mr. Gore it was a “great big” tax.
“Nobody in this country realizes that cap-and-trade is a tax — and it’s a great big one,” U.S. Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., said Friday.
In attempting to debate the cap-and-trade system, Mr. Gore did not address whether the cap-and-trade system was a tax, but said its passage was “a moral imperative.”
Coming soon to a grocery store and utility near you. It will be the biggest tax increase in the history of our country. Don't expect your wages to go up to match the diluted $Dollar.
Our political and other leaders have created a ruling-powered class, and continue to feed lies to the common person. Sure some of the programs benefit the common man, but the price is always excessive - like paying Halliburton to move supplies to the troops. The government is like a legal Mafia.
I will have to find out what cap and trade is. It probably isn't good.
ABC had a show on tonite about the future. Rising sea levels, uncurable viruses. Too bad that 10 million US vehicle sales a year is a near depression causing production level. The pollution and energy consumption to produce that many cars and trucks is enormous, yet is way too low to sustain our economic health. We have to choose between prosperity and using up the earth. Most will choose prosperity.
A friend on mine works at one of the 11 GM plants that will be closed.
PHOENIX - A light rail train was taken out of service Tuesday morning after someone left a nasty surprise inside.
Around 8 a.m., a train was stopped for cleaning after a man smudged feces in the interior of the train. Police were told the man on the train was flicking and playing with feces.
The light rail operator was notified and quickly took the train out of service.
The man, who police say is homeless, was questioned at the station and released. Police plan to review surveillance video on the train.
So he is back on the street, looking for another bus or train to ride around Phoenix. No thank you, I will take my own vehicle. I don't care if the ocean has inundated downtown San Diego because of my SUV. Move to higher ground. Just makes my property at the 2000 foot level more desirable and valuable.
There has been no changes to the (electrical) automatic program able timers. The funny thing is since we got a new (electric) dishwasher, the natural gas used to heat MORE hot water has gone down!!?? Intuitively I would have thought it would have gone up; and up far higher !!!?? We did not use the old dishwasher during the same period last year.
I just wish I could see a little bit of logic in the GW cult point of view. It all smells of political propaganda to steal from the sheeple.
I am constantly reminded by news media that: NO GOOD DEED GOES UNPUNISHED.
Me thinks that global COOLING is at best a curse word and at worst heresy to the GW cult crowd. I would not want them to fire up the carbon credits for the people roasting ovens on my account..... :lemon:
9 million passengers rode a bus or a train without feces today. Opponents of mass transit set to have embarrassing press conference at noon to say how foolish they are now because of this development.
Like that lawyer who took an international plane flight knowing he had contagious TB !!?? The issue was: even if it was contagious, who dare set themselves up saying he couldn't travel????
Foolish.... !! ?? Indeed !! ??
No thanks. I want as little public interaction as possible. When a real nasty virus strain does hit, it'll be the people on public transportation who will unknowlingly first get the disease and spread it.
Not to mention the poisonous waste dealing with the disposal of the depleted Lithium Ion Batteries in about 3 Years of use, something Toyota doesn't tell you.
Add to that the $1200.00 replacement cost for the replacement Batteries and you're out even more Money and have doubled the Carbon Footprint from the so called "Green Car"...
Toyota's just in the "on-road trial stage" for lithium ion batteries. I don't see Toyota selling cars with them unless they can do a warranty similar to the 8 year Prius battery pack warranty. Or is it 10 years now?
But you're right - there's no free lunch.
But you are wrong about the Prius in regard to it's life, it's lifetime carbon footprint, and it's recyclability.